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This is a Photoshop of Brett Favre in a Minnesota Vikings uniform. Excuse me for a moment. I have to eject my entire digestive tract out of my body.

BRAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH

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That was fun. Favre, nee Favraro, has been in the media lately. This makes perfect sense, because we had just gone three whole blissful months without Favre being in the media. And, of course, that won't do. Favre has decided he wants to come back. Of course, he hasn't confirmed that he's coming back. That would take far too much decisiveness and leadership. Plus it would bring closure to the story. And what fun would that be?

Fucking indecisive piece of fuck.

No, no. Favre only wanted to HINT at idea that he was coming back, so that the media could spend weeks speculating over his return. And presumably so fat, slovenly Wisconsinites could write to him saying, "Please come back, Brett! And bring some whoopie pies with you!"

While Favre "ponders" coming back and lets the threat of his return loom over the team like a giant fart cloud for a few months, he has put the Packers in a position where they get utterly buttfucked no matter what choice they decide to make once Favre makes up his mind seven years from now. They can take Favre back, in which case Aaron Rodgers angrily bolts in 2009 and leaves the team bereft at the position. They can cut Favre, fire Favre, in which case they get nothing in return, along with having to live with the fact that they cut poor Brett. Oh, the indignity! He wanted to come back FOR LOVE OF THE GAME, but they wouldn't let him!

Douche.

Or they can trade Favre. Media law dictates that columnists evaluate every other NFL team as a potential landing spot for Favre. And a great many of them, even our own AJ Daulerio, have decided that the best fit for Favre is in one of two places. The first is Chicago, where Favre would become the New Old Sex Cannon. But the other one, the one most frequently mentioned, is Minnesota, which is my favorite team.

Now, the odds of Favre becoming a Viking or a Bear are slim to none. Ted Thompson and the Packer front office would rather eat shit and die than trade Favre to a division rival. In the case of the Vikings, many people who don't follow the team don't know that Brad Childress is the most stubborn, pigheaded coach in the NFL. Childress traded up to draft Tarvaris Jackson, stuck by him all through last year, and has brought in virtually no competition at the position this offseason, thus living or dying with Jackson once September arrives.

He's been hyping up Jackson to anyone who will listen. He has little to no interest in making himself look bad by bringing in Favre (thus conceding that Jackson isn't ready to carry the load), or undermining his own faith in his ability to turn Jackson into a great player. There's also the little fact that Favre imploded in the NFC Championship in January, so the idea of him as the final piece of a championship puzzle may be overstating things juuust a bit.

Mouthfucker.

So it's probably not happening. But what if it did? What if the world flipped upside down and Favre did end up in a Viking uniform? Excuse the bout of homerism for a second, but what the fuck would that do to me?

I have spent the past 15 years nursing my blind hatred for Brett Favre. I've brought up my hate. Raised it. Fed it. Nurtured it. Taught it valuable lessons. I've watched it grow into full blossom. If my hate were a child (and I do think of my hate that way), he'd be off to Hate College in just a couple years. He'd probably major in Death Threats. Why, he'd be driving by now! He'd be driving his little Hate Car over burning effigies of Favre I would lay out on the driveway. I've put a lot of hard work into this hate. My hate and I, we don't even need to use words to communicate anymore. We can just give each other a subtle glance and know exactly what kind of horrible fate we'd like Favre to experience.

Goddamn assfisting sack of dick goo. I hope he shoots himself with his own bow.

You see? My hate and I are so very much on the same page. Why, I can hate Brett Favre for so many different reasons. I can hate him purely for football reasons. Lord knows he's snatched a game or two away from my team in the fourth quarter. The goddamn dogblower. I can hate him, as many do, for the lavish amount of praise he gets from writers and analysts. Fucking shitsmelling cockpuller. I can hate him for those goddamn Wrangler jeans ads. I wore sturdy-kid Wranglers when I was little boy. They weren't real comfortable at all. They were stiffer than construction paper. That brand message is bullshit.

I can hate anyone who associates with him. I can even hate children who like him. Stupid kids. This hate has been with me so long, I don't ever want to be apart from it. I love my hate. It brings me great joy.

Fucking shit-bearded scrotum-licker.

But here's the thing about that hate: it's mostly an illusion. If Favre was the exact same person and had played for MY team and not the goddamn Packers, I would of course adore him and forgive him all his foibles. But he doesn't play for my team, so fuck him. Also, if I were to meet Favre in person, it's a pretty strong likelihood I would NOT go up to him and say YOU FUCKING CUM-SLURPING COCK BURGLAR. That would be impolite. I'm sure he's just a swell guy. Peter King tells me that every day.

So why do I hate his guts so much? Well, because I can.

The reason we sports fans hate is because it's the only acceptable place in the world TO hate. You can't hate people of other races. That's wrong. But you can sure as shit hate people of other teams. Sports allow us to hate without consequence, which is very cathartic. If we just went around liking everything, we'd all be miserable. Sports are a relatively safe receptacle for our bile and cruelty. We can toss our hate over there, then go about being respectable human beings elsewhere. It keeps us from REAL hate, which is destructive. We leave our hate "on the field" so to speak.

It's not personal. To me, it's just a role I play as a fan. Favre plays for my team's rival. So it's my JOB to hate every fiber of his fucking being. If I clapped for him, that would be gay. Only Cardinal fans do that.

I recently read Stefan Fatsis' new book, and in it, players profess being disturbed at the amount of bile fans direct at players and coaches. They don't wanna lose games any more than fans do. So why do fans treat it like life or death? Well, because it's more fun that way. It gives our lives a nice little jolt of drama. You can't get that worked up about stuff in the real world. You gotta handle your shit when it comes to the real world. But you can go right ahead and lose your goddamn mind watching the game. Nothing's gonna happen if you do. Although you might rip a guy's balls off. But whatever. That dude can walk it off.

Will Leitch, the former editor of this fair site, who as you know died two weeks ago, has long argued that sports are our oasis from reality. So why not take it all the way? Why bother thinking of the players as real human beings? I know Brett Favre is a human being, with feelings and shit. But the truth is, he's no realer to me than fucking Pinocchio. We don't know athletes. We CAN'T know athletes. So why treat them as real people? That's no fun. If I met Favre and had a friendly exchange with him, my attitude would almost certainly change, because he'd be a real person to me. I'd know him. But as it stands, he remains more a character in my little imaginary sports world.

A character I hope gets impaled on an ornamental steel fence at the end of the story.

Think about gossip magazines. People read that shit all the time. And the reason they do is because the celebrities they see inside aren't real people to them. It's just a serialized soap opera of who's banging who and who's leaving who. We know who these people are, but we don't KNOW them, which is why we feel free to judge them and laugh at their misfortune. It's a nice outlet for all our cruel pettiness, and it helps keep us civil in our real-life interactions. Plus, plenty of those people deserve the scorn. Man, that Spencer Pratt is a fucking douche and a half. I hope he takes a Lamborghini ride with Nick Hogan sometime soon.

That's why I don't want Favre to join my favorite team. I've enjoyed hating him for so long. It's practically all I know. If he joined the Vikings, I'd have to root for him. No choice. That's my job as a fan. I'd have to leave my hate behind. And that would be a tragedy. This hate has been so good for me as a person. It's really helped me mature. I've never known a hate like this before. You're my one true hate, Brett. I'm not just not ready to start all over again with that new fuckhead, Aaron Rodgers. Man, does he look like a real cockswallower.

So I say to Brett Favre: please come back and play for the Packers. Don't play for my team. I want to fall in hate with you all over again. My hate and I will welcome you with open arms. And then we will use those arms to throw broken bottles at you. You fucking wishy washy gashbleeder.

Special thanks (I think) to Dan V for the Photoshop. Your one true hates, sports or otherwise, in the comments.